The waiting bones...

[Tronhard]

The Context:
In 1996 the Ching Ming Chinese Cemetery at Harling Point, Victoria British Columbia, Canada was designated a National Historic Site by the Government of Canada. Time has erased clues to some of the dead. Their names, etched in Cantonese characters, have faded into granite tombstones in Canada's oldest Chinese cemetery on a seaside bluff overlooking million-dollar ocean views outside Victoria along Gonzales Bay. About 400 Chinese are buried in the cemetery. Thirteen adjacent mass graves contain the unmarked remains of another 900. Many of the buried are among Canada's first Chinese immigrants, who came as cheap labourers to build the Canadian Pacific Railway in the late 1800s before Ottawa imposed a head tax on Chinese immigrants between 1885 to 1904. In 1923, the federal government passed the Chinese Immigration Act, known as the Chinese exclusion act, which barred Chinese from entering Canada. It was repealed in 1947, when Chinese Canadians were granted the right to vote.

The cemetery was chosen because elements of nature within it express Feng Shui. Traditional Chinese practices called for the remains to be exhumed seven years after burial so the bones could be cleaned and packed in crates for shipment to China. A "bone house", no longer standing on the B.C. site, once stored remains of Chinese from across Canada for shipment. The shipments were halted in 1937 when the Sino-Japanese war broke out, and in 1961, the 900 stored remains were buried in mass graves adjacent to the cemetery.

Extracts from The Old Cemeteries Society of Victoria and Kim Lunman, Toronto Globe and Mail - Monday, April 9, 2001.
For those able to access it within BC (or with VPN capability) there is an excellent documentary on the cemetery on the Knowledge Network site: https://www.knowledge.ca/program/harling-point



The IMAGE:
I was tasked with taking a single image in B&W as part of local club exercise. I chose to use the gateway as it symbolized the cemetery as an intended portal for the remains to make their journey back to their homes. Within that frame, in the middle distance, the twin towers of the alter await the eye as one is naturally drawn to the ocean, symbolizing the journey the dead had hoped to make, and the small sail in the distance suggests the frail hope of return. The mountains rising behind block the view and imply the barriers to that fulfillment. On the far right the fence symbolizes the barriers that still exist for Asian (and other visible) minorities within our society. The grave stones themselves lie subdued below, clustered like the ghosts of figures standing and looking out to sea, waiting...

Photographers make or capture images for a lot of reasons: from purely artistic to purely documentary. When people view such images they may judge the picture just on its face value as a piece of art - there will be those who may comment on this from a purely technical point of view. However, for images such as this, context becomes important as it is also a historical and social construct. It is indeed unbalanced, bleak and lonely, reflecting the tragedies of those immured here and those in China who never had their loved ones returned.

[Shadowman]

Nicely captured.

[purplehaze]

Wow, Trev. That is a moving story you have told and I appreciate the detailed description of the symbolism of your composition. How was it received by your club?

Speaking from the technical side, I do wish the pictographs on the arch and the lettering on the plaque were a little more distinct.

[Manfred M]

Trev - the story you told is definitely not one of Canada's finest moments. The shot of the cemetery definitely puts that part of our history into a tangible context.

[Sergio M.]

Trev, a very interesting read. The photo helps complete the message.

Sergio

[Tronhard]

Wow, Trev. That is a moving story you have told and I appreciate the detailed description of the symbolism of your composition. How was it received by your club?

Speaking from the technical side, I do wish the pictographs on the arch and the lettering on the plaque were a little more distinct.

Hi Janis:

Thank you for taking the time to read the rather extensive blurb and respond. I do agree with you that the image lacks clarity of the entrance signage. Perhaps it is indicative of the lack of resource that the entrance is overgrown and the main entry arch is so degraded with dirt and over-written with tagging as to make the pictographs almost impossible to see, even to the naked eye. The gates in the entryway are locked, but a simple fence gate further along allows access to the site. Just down the road is another National Historic site, which is in perfect condition - but that is part of the European story...

The response from my club was much like this site. Very little response, one or two considered comments and one comment on the technical aspects of the image.

[purplehaze]

I do agree with you that the image lacks clarity of the entrance signage. Perhaps it is indicative of the lack of resource that the entrance is overgrown and the main entry arch is so degraded with dirt and over-written with tagging as to make the pictographs almost impossible to see, even to the naked eye.

Ah; interesting point. Btw, I apologize for my brain burp; the proper term is ideograph.

The gates in the entryway are locked, but a simple fence gate further along allows access to the site. Just down the road is another National Historic site, which is in perfect condition - but that is part of the European story...

I think this site deserves a photo essay, where everything you described is broken down into its constituent elements and the images themselves, insofar as is possible, are framed and composed so as to tell the story together. Very interesting, and poignant.